


Get The Balance Right

by annemari



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Family, Gen, Haircuts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annemari/pseuds/annemari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know, we should do something with your hair," Gerard says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get The Balance Right

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to **alpheratz** for looking this over!  <333

Gerard slouches down, makes a face at the mirror, then runs his fingers through his hair. It looks good. It looks pretty great, actually. Not exactly how he imagined it, but close enough that he's satisfied.

He knows it's the second day that's important, the one that's, like, make it or break it, but the third one is where it all settles. It looked good the first day, looked good yesterday, and it still looks fucking excellent now. So Gerard's pretty fucking pleased with himself.

"Stop admiring yourself and let's fucking go already," Mikey says.

Gerard grins and turns around. Mikey's leaning against the doorway, sunglasses and hat on, looking impatient. Gerard grabs his jacket and keys, and quickly turns back for one more look in the mirror.

"It looks fine," Mikey says. "Come on."

"It looks _great_ ," Gerard says, following Mikey out the door and to his car. "You know, we should do something with your hair."

Mikey doesn't respond, just gets in the passenger seat. Gerard huffs and jogs to the driver's side.

"Did you even hear me?" he asks, pulling the door shut after him and starting the car.

"I always do," Mikey says. Gerard's pretty sure he's rolling his eyes. "Did you hear about the new DC series?"

Gerard pulls out of the driveway and stores the idea in the back of his mind. He has comic books to focus on now.

~

They get a good haul from the comic book store and hit the music store and an art store after that. Gerard can see Mikey's tired on the way back, but he still manages to convince him to come in for dinner.

"So what do you think?" Gerard asks after they finish their curry and start cleaning up.

Mikey pauses. "About the conversation you were having in your head?"

Gerard shakes his head. "About your hair. We should do something with it."

Mikey sets up the dishwasher and leans against the counter. "You were serious?"

"Of course I was," Gerard says. "You know I'm always serious about hair."

Mikey raises his eyebrows.

"Well, I'm always serious about _you_ ," Gerard says, getting a small smile from Mikey in response. He grins and says, "Come on, it'll be fun. I'll make you look good."

"I already look good," Mikey deadpans. He shrugs and crosses his arms. "I don't know, I don't think I have the time."

"No, come on, we'll do it right now," Gerard says. "You're not in a hurry, it's not even that late."

Mikey sighs, but he's not arguing. Gerard's pretty sure he's won, but he leans in and throws his arm over Mikey's shoulder, squeezing gently. Mikey's too tense, and Gerard wants to fix that.

"It won't be anything too drastic," he says. "If you don't want to, I mean. I totally have some old red hair dye somewhere if you do."

Mikey shrugs again and Gerard lifts his arm off his shoulders and reaches up to gently tug at Mikey's hair instead. It's a sad limp mess, in Gerard's opinion. The blond has grown out a while ago, but the ends are still rough and damaged from the dye. He tugs at piece of hair caught under the arms of Mikey's glasses. It's strange how familiar it is when things are so different.

"Let's at least wash it," he says. Mikey gives him a sideways look. He still has his arms wrapped around himself, but he's relaxed a bit.

"Seriously?" he asks. "Washing my hair? I mean, I get that you finally embraced showering, but—"

"But nothing," Gerard says and steps away, making a face. "Your hair needs washing. We're gonna wash it. Can't send you back looking like this."

Mikey rolls his eyes again, but this time there's a quirk to his lips.

"And we'll probably cut it, too," Gerard adds. "And dye it, seriously, Mikes, it needs work."

"It's fine," Mikey says. "It's fine like that, what's wrong with it?"

Gerard exhales with deep exasperation. "It's a mess, Mikes. I swear, this is what happens when you wear hats all the time."

"I like it like this."

Gerard tilts his head, then steps close to pull Mikey into a hug. "Just let me do this for you," he says. He never wants to force Mikey into anything, he's done with that, but he really does think this will be good. It'll look good and Mikey will good, and that's what's most important.

Mikey takes a slow breath and leans his head against Gerard's. Gerard tightens his hold on Mikey, and smiles, when Mikey says, "Fine."

~

"You know, I _could_ actually wash my own hair," Mikey says as Gerard guides him to the bathroom on the second floor, the one with the handheld shower head. "I'm capable of that."

"I know," Gerard says. "This isn't about that. Besides, you're tired."

Mikey doesn't argue or ask what it _is_ about, then, so Gerard knows he's right. He goes and gets a chair, sets it up near the sink, and pushes Mikey into it.

"I could just get in the bath," Mikey says. "I mean. I guess. This is weird."

"You'll get cold," Gerard says. "Plus I need better access."

"For what?" Mikey asks. "I thought we were just gonna wash it?"

Gerard places his hands on Mikey's shoulders and looks at him critically. "We're definitely gonna cut it. It's too long."

"It's not too long. And since when are you a hairdresser?"

"Since I discovered the magic of scissors and hair dye."

"Bullshit."

"It's true," Gerard says.

"That was ages ago," Mikey points out. "Have you ever even done anyone's hair before?"

"I've helped Lindsey dye hers," Gerard says. "So what color do you want?"

Mikey narrows his eyes at him. He doesn't answer, but crosses his arms again instead. Gerard sighs and goes to look through the cupboard where they keep hair dye.

"We don't have a lot," he says. "Oh, here's the red."

"We're not gonna dye my hair red," Mikey says, which is at least a reaction.

"You sure?" Gerard asks, glancing back. Mikey's frowning at him.

"Doesn't that take, like, a while? Don't we have to bleach my hair for that?"

"Not necessarily," Gerard says. "Just then it won't really...stick. Look as bright. How about brown?"

"My hair is brown," Mikey says.

"Darker," Gerard says. "Or we could make the ends lighter."

"You mean like yours?" Mikey asks. "Yeah, no."

Gerard pouts. His hair looks awesome. But maybe that's not really the way to go for Mikey.

He grabs the dark brown hair dye and walks back over to Mikey. "Look."

Mikey takes the dye and inspects it. It's only a bit darker than his current hair, and the important thing will probably be the cut—and the wash—anyway. All Gerard wants to do is to bring a little bit more _life_ to Mikey's hair. Maybe they should still go with red.

"Okay," Mikey says, and for a moment Gerard's ready to go grab the bleach and red before he realizes that's probably not what Mikey's agreeing to. "This will work, I guess."

"It will," Gerard says, then bites his lip. "Uh, how about—"

"No," Mikey says. "Not red. I don't—it'd be too bright."

"Okay," Gerard says. "This, then." Mikey nods, and Gerard places a hand on his shoulder, says, "Hey."

Mikey looks up at him, and Gerard smiles. "You are okay with this, right? I promise it'll be good."

There's a flicker of something on Mikey's face, but it's gone too fast for Gerard to make sense of it. What's important is the soft smile Mikey gives him and the fond look in his eyes. "Yeah, let's do it."

Gerard grins and lifts Mikey's glasses off his face.

~

Dyeing Mikey's hair is an experience. It should be easy, Gerard can fucking dye his own hair, how hard is it to dye someone else's?

Still, he gets dye on the floor, dye on Mikey's clothes, almost gets dye in Mikey's _eye_ , but they manage to avoid that at the last minute. There's a moment where Gerard is wiping the dye off the side of Mikey's face and somehow, he has no idea how, almost pulls out Mikey's nose ring. Stupid nose ring.

They finally manage to get all the dye on and Gerard has Mikey sit and wait while it sets. He manages to clean up most of the bathroom during the wait. There's a comfortable silence.

"Okay," Gerard says when time's up. "Here we go."

He grabs the shower head and messes with the water temperature till he's sure it's just right. Then he has Mikey lean back as far as he can, the chair just low enough that he can rest his head on the edge of the sink, and gets to work.

It's a really calming process, washing the dye out of Mikey's hair, taking care not to get any water in Mikey's eye. It definitely goes easier than the dyeing, and it's—pleasant. Gerard can't fucking wait to get to the cutting part. He keeps running his hand through Mikey's hair, liking the way the strands feel much healthier as he's washing them. He knows they'll probably feel rough again later, simply because of the dye, but he'll give Mikey some conditioner to fix that. It'll look good, that he's sure of.

"How is this?" he asks Mikey, pitching his voice a little to be heard over the sound of running water.

"It's good," Mikey says. His eyes are closed. Probably mostly to avoid getting water in them, but his face is relaxed as well. Gerard's proud of himself for that.

When the water runs mostly clean, Gerard turns the tap off and gets a towel to dry Mikey's hair. The dye still gives off a bit of color, but the towel's dark enough that it doesn't matter, and Gerard prefers it to a blowdryer.

"Fuck," Gerard says, taking a small step back to admire the result. "That looks good." It's only slightly darker than Mikey's natural hair, but there's a—there's _something_ to it. And the washing really helped.

"Yeah?" Mikey asks, trying to twist around.

Gerard stops him with a tap to the top of his head. "We're not done yet."

The haircut part might actually prove to be the hardest. Gerard's ready to tackle it and all, he's just not quite sure how to approach it. He was thinking about just a trim, something to give Mikey's hair a little boost, but now he's staring at Mikey's forehead and chewing on his lip.

"You're staring at my forehead," Mikey says, eyes closed. He seems to have embraced that Gerard is just gonna do what he wants and isn't gonna show Mikey the result until he's done. "Stop it," Mikey says. "You're making it itch."

"By staring at it?" Gerard asks, and reaches out to lightly scratch at it. "It's big."

"Hence the hats," Mikey says.

Gerard frowns and picks up a comb.

After five minutes of tinkering Mikey finally asks, "What are you doing?"

"Giving you bangs," Gerard says.

Mikey blinks. "What?"

"Well, not exactly. Just a bit. Sort of. I'm not sure yet, but it'll work."

"You keep saying that."

"It will," Gerard says, and carefully clips the hair near Mikey's left temple, sticking his tongue out in concentration. "Don't you trust me?"

Mikey sighs. "I trust you."

Gerard nods and keeps going. It's hard to not make Mikey's hair resemble his own too much, because that's the cut he's used to. At the same time, Mikey's hair has a pretty different texture than his and it won't probably ever be as wavy or full as Gerard's.

Finally, he manages to get it look close to the way he imagined it. He didn't really cut much of it, just clipped the ends and tried to work in a bit of bangs to cover Mikey's forehead. He puts the scissors away and takes Mikey's face into his hands, tilting it back to get a good look. Mikey's looking up at him, eyes tired but warm, his bangs not long enough to cover them. That's important.

"Okay," Gerard says and steps back. "Wait, no, hold on," he adds, as Mikey tries to turn around to look in the mirror. He gets the blowdryer and quickly goes over Mikey's hair, satisfied to see it still looks good even when dry. He sets the blowdryer down and reaches forward to mess up the sides, combs his fingers through the top, and circles the chair to make sure everything's still in order. "Okay, now."

Mikey shakes his head, making his hair settle even better, just _right_ , oh, yes, and gets up. Gerard's not sure whether he imagines the pause and the inhale, if that's just how _he_ feels about the moment, but then Mikey's turning around and looking in the mirror.

"Well?" Gerard asks, eyes trained at Mikey's face in the mirror. "What do you think?"

Mikey turns his head one way and the other, leans in and raises his hand to his hair, running his fingers through it. He's not saying anything, but Gerard can read his expression well enough.

"You like it, right?" Gerard asks, just to make sure. "I told you it looks great."

Mikey straightens up and turns to face Gerard, smiling softly. "Yeah, it does, right?"

"It totally does," Gerard says. 

Mikey grins and glances back in the mirror, hand going to his hair again.

"Perfect," Gerard says. "New comic book day. New Mikey hair day."

Mikey snorts. "Can I have my glasses?"

Gerard hands them over and watches Mikey slip them on, pleased to see they work with the haircut, too.

"Awesome," Mikey says, and leans in for a hug. "Thanks, Gee."

Gerard wraps his arms around Mikey and squeezes. "No problem."

He gets a text from Mikey later, after Mikey's left and Gerard's thinking about heading to bed.

_I really like it, thanks. <3_

Gerard grins at his phone, and writes out a quick tweet.

_New hairdos all around! A great day._


End file.
